PS 3507 
.02 M5 
1915 

Copy * 



THE MIDDLE MILES 



By LEE WILSON DODD 

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 




..-#««« 




THE MIDDLE MILES 

AND 

OTHER POEMS 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

AND 

OTHER POEMS 

BY 
LEE WILSON DODD 




New'Haven: Yale University Press 
MDCCCCXV 



.0",,,' 



Copyright, 1915 

By 

Yale University Press 



First printed from type, November, 1915, 500 copies 



6 



DEC 27 1915 

'CU418230 
*7<<* / 



To the edition of Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The 
Yale Review, The Century Magazine, The Forum, The 
Outlook, The Metropolitan, and The American Maga- 
zine, thanks are due for kind permission to reprint cer- 
tain of the following verses. 

The author is particularly grateful to Mr. Franklin 
P. Adams, of The New York Tribune, for permission to 
reprint a group of verses on the war, contributed during 
the past year to "The Conning Tower." 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Dedication 3 

The Middle Miles 4 

To ***** g 

Incognita 7 

To Doris 8 

Man's Song and Woman's 10 

Was it a Leaf — ? 11 

The Dancer 13 

Mirella Dances 15 

Night Armies 18 

Waste 18 

In Memoriam 21 

Thanksgiving Day 22 

De Gustibus 23 

Cui Bono — ? 24 

Interval 25 

Ballad of One Awake 27 

Ballad of One Asleep 29 

Fire Flies 30 

By a Nameless Grave 31 

The Temple 32 

Only Not To Be Too Early Old 34 

We of the Borderland 35 

The Heroes 36 

The Comrade 38 

This Poem 39 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I Know a Garden 40 

Italia 43 

To a Certain Noble Gentleman 44 

Pamparigousto 45 

Lourdes 47 

Les Andelys 49 

"Clair de Lune" 50 

After Hearing Music by Claude Debussy 50 

Lament of a New England Art Student 51 

Stroller's Song 52 

Poor Pierrot 53 

My City Window Fronts the Sky 54 

The Escape 56 

The Change 56 

Apologia 58 

Midwinter Ode 64 

The Owl on Wing of Silentness -65 

Sing Forth, Sing Free 66 

To a Fair Moralist 68 

When Half-Gods Go 68 

Question of Property 69 

The Wish 70 

"Frail Singers of To-Day" 70 

But — Soul ? : . 71 

Rivals 71 

Woe to the Poet Who Forgets to Dream 72 

Sons of Men 73 

To a Christian Poet 73 

To Francis Thompson . . Whither ? 74 

In Ireland 77 

"O Strange Monotony of Song" 78 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Per Contra 78 

Incantation 80 

In Lieu of Preface 81 

Nightmare 82 

Maitre Arouet's Complaint 83 

By Proxy 87 

Sisters 87 

The Heath 87 

Valentine 88 

True Woman 89 

I Guard Mine Own 90 

Confession 91 

The Woman Speaks 91 

Hide and Seek 92 

Faithless 92 

"A Plague on All Cowards" 93 

The Surprise 95 

My Country 96 

Formerly 98 

The Two Prayers 100 

Hither, Hyperion ! 101 

Song Triumphant 102 

Penultimate 104 

O Golden Age Departed 105 



DEDICATION 

The honorable kindred claims of mind 
Unite us, dear my wife, in closer, sweeter, 
More excellent oneness than aught else of worth, 
Though much else does unite us ... . Now let us sit 
Quietly by the shaded lamp and turn 
The level lighted pages, and retincture 
Old treasured images, or such vagrom moods 
As come but with the vision-words of song: 
Or let us picture forth our own hid dreams 
In delicately limning speech; or question 
Wistfully, and half-answer — seeking truth. 
Thus do our souls meet grandly. More august 
Is love so tended by thought's graver train: 
Ay, and more beautiful and more safely strong, 
More firm and fearless at the gates of Change — 
More certain at the single gate of Death. 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

(to H. S. C.) 

Thirty-five years is not very long — 

Just half or more of the way to death: 

But the sultry middle miles of the way 

Are alien miles to the heart of song. 

For in youth we sing, and in age we pray, 

Sing with the gold locks, pray with the gray ; 

But the middle miles dustily choke the breath 

Of singer and saint as they strain and plod 

On, on. . . . 

In the noon of strife, the tropics of life, 

On.... 

Unassuaged of the clear cool carolling dawn, 

Or the cool clear coronal stars of God. 

Yet the middle miles in the drouthy plain, 

Twixt the towers of Heaven and towers of Spain, 

Measured miles of patience and pain — 

O friend ! — 

Because we have gladly through the smother 

Called " Is it well with thee, my brother ? " 

Because we remember young April's rain, 

May-tide flowers, June's volatile sweetness, 

And dare to know we shall know again 

Joy, but joy in a grave completeness; 

Because, though faint, we hold the track, 

Nor falter, nor turn back — 

O friend ! — 



TO< 



It is our faith the middle miles must end. 

For the dread parching wind that dries 

Even the healing of tears from our eyes 

Wafteth stealthily now and again 

Intangible prophecies .... 

Yea, the dread desert sand-wind blows, 

Beareth from afar to our yearning ken, 

Not now, but now and then, 

Furtive, the tenuous breath of a ghostly rose. 



'JO**-*** 

Dear little boy, whose parents give 
Their hearts to you each hour afresh, 
Within whose tiny life they live 
Commingled, in whose radiant flesh 

Invisible fingers shape anew 

Your father's eyes, your mother's smile, 

This grown-up song I sing for you 

Is lonely for a little while. 

And lonely songs are often sad: 
So when you come upon my song 
After long years, dear little lad, 
Remember it has waited long. 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Remember then how patiently 
My song has tarried till you grew 
Aware of a grave melody 
Your father and your mother knew. 

And though far other songs resound 
About you then, bold ballads, cries 
Of passionate yearning, a sharp sound 
Of jubilant voices ! though your eyes 

See only color and strong lights 
Shining, and though your eager tongue 
Must clamor for youth's golden rights . . . 
Dear God! Remember we were young! 

We have but passed before you, child: 

Have pity on us ! If I sing 

Too sadly, O be reconciled 

A little moment ! Then take wing. 

On to your world which is not ours, 
On to your rapture and your pain ! . . . 
We too have seen hope's roseate towers 
Lift o'er the moated walls of Spain. 



INCOGNITA 

Tiny Unknown, who yet shall be so near, 

To this starv'd haven by what wild tempest flung, 



INCOGNITA 

Driving o'er alien seas, — 

Welcome ! O be thou welcome and trebly dear ! 

A forward spring, brisking the sullen year 

From its bleak thoughts and rude 

Loveless decrepitude, 

Lonely in harsh distrust .... 

O be thou, child, our hoped Hesperides, 

Our dreamed-of songs unsung, 

Fresh showers where all was dust ! 

Come, as a bluebird in April's tranced dawn 

Flies to the winter-empty, preparate nest, 

And settling thereupon, 

After long flight from dim lands undescried 

Tarries and takes sweet rest, 

Possessing, and possessed 

Of them whose longing lured, held, nor would be denied. 

So shall this dull November burgeon blithe 
With more than May time joyance, so shall we 
Sing with the Sower and forget his scythe — 
Too long our emblem for Life's husbandry: 
And though the leaf drifts from the parent tree, 
And though the first flakes scatter down the lane, 
Thy helplessness brings more of ecstasy 
Than bird or bud or blossom or honey-bee ! 
Thy very weakness a strong mystery .... 
Love's bond upon our hearts that setteth free, 
Yet seemeth to restrain. 



THE MIDDLE MILES 
TO DORIS 



How weak those dear, uncertain hands 
Held with spread fingers, baby-wise ; 
And how their helpless quest commands 
Such service as no master buys ! 

What do you seek, my darling ? Toys ? 
The red fish? the green frog? the blue 
Rabbit, whose color-scheme destroys 
No whit the gravity in you ? 

Take them. You scarce can hold them yet 
But can a grown-up father hold 
His toys more firmly ? No, my pet ; 
His grasp too falters, uncontrolled. 

Ah, would that he might feel, how near ! 
A loving Father with kind eyes 
And patient hands, how firm to steer 
Weak, wavering fingers toward their prize. 

Could he thus feel, he would not dread 
Days he must dream of, when no more 
Green frog, blue rabbit, fish of red, 
Will be the toys you hanker for : 



8 



TO DORIS 

Days when, a woman grown, you long 
For love, for beauty, for delight . . . 
And find your arms, that seem so strong, 
Too frail to guard them from the night. 



Dear baby, I do ill to raise 
The old, grim questions by your side : 
Rather, my kindling song should praise 
Life, by your rare smile deified. 

Your palms like pansies brush my cheek,. 
Your flax-blue eyes meet mine and rest 
Long moments, trustfully ; you seek 
Love that is sure and self-confessed. 

And it may be your maiden heart 
Will seek no love that is not yours 
Before the asking — sealed apart 
For you. Such love for aye endures. 

Endures for life, and, it may be, 
Endures beyond this life of care : 
The stars a blind man does not see 
Are no less infinitely there. 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

MAN'S SONG AND WOMAN'S 

All along the meadow and up the little hill 
Golden ripples in the wheat travel to the blue ! 

Woman, woman, if I run following my will, 
Where shall I find you, whither fare with you ? 

Find me — ask not where, 
Take me where you will, 
Take me over seas, 
For the world is old; 
And my heart grows cold, 
And weary are my knees, 
And I wait white and still, 
In the shadow of my hair! 

Woman, woman, woman, what is this you say ? 

Are you not the loveliest, gayest of the gay ? 

Do you not dance, do you not sing, 

With your hair burning round you in a red-gold ring ? 

Do you not sing, do you not dance, 

Till the sun bows before you and the stars advance, 

Till the moon courtseys to you, the stars on silver feet 

Pirouette in heaven to pleasure you, my sweet ? 

These are but words, 
And my heart needs fire- — 
Find me, find me, 
Turn not, nor tire! 



10 



WAS IT A LEAF—? 

These are but words, 
And my heart needs life — 
Find me, find me, 
Make me your wife! 

All along the meadow and up the little hill, 

Sudden ripples in the wheat travel to the blue ! 

Woman, woman, if I run following my will — 

Shall I seek, shall I find you, shall I stay with you? 

WAS IT A LEAF — ? 

We have a fast retreat, 

A trysting-place for dreams, 

Felise and I. 

Often we creep there from that myriad eye, 

The Argus-world; there in enfolded calm, 

Inviolable, complete, 

Our sheltered spirits meet; 

We speak as fancy wills, as fancy wills reply. 

The right sun loiters by, 

A golden youth floating in azure waves, 

Warming our deep air-caves, 

Green, green below him, with his godlike smile. 

The faultless silence saves 

Our overwrought time-harried souls, and peace 

(Her voice among the trees 

Scarce heard) 

Rewards our daring indolence awhile. 



11 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Was it a leaf that stirred? 

"Think" — is the voice not mine? — 
"Think of imperious labors left behind: 

To dream of toil forsaken is the best 

Gift of the dream-god — Rest. 

Even as Lucretius found it, shall we find 

The sight of conflict from our coigne apart; 

The memory of that fray 

Which stunned us yesterday 

Soothes, a deft handmaid of impassive art; 

And tumults we decline 

(Ah ! were they ever mine !) 

Are hung like arras round cool chambers of the heart." 

Thus my meandering word 

Moves whimsically; Felise 

Smiles to the wiser trees. 

Was it a leaf that stirred? 

"Think" — is the voice not hers ? — 
"Think of stark passions in the days to be; 

Think of the unreached goal, the pitiless rivalry 

No quiescence deters. 

Is it not lovelier so to half-forsake with me 

The future and its fate? 

Now while the crises wait, 

Covert assassins down a road that lies 



12 



THE DANCER 

Too far from paradise, 

Now let us mock them with voluptuous scorn ; 

Now let us mock all evil things unborn, 

Smiling from languid eyelids toward that morn, 

Inevitable, tho' late, 

Bringing us secretly grief's last malign surprise. 

Here all save beauty dies, 

And we embrace the immortal mood of death, 

Knowing that mood deferred." 

Thus her deep tranced word 

Droops on a restful breath. 

Was it a leaf that stirred? 



THE DANCER 

I dance — who would live for a season 
Before all living be past, 
I dance to a rhyme without reason, 
In the sweeping rhythm, the vast 
Pulse at the heart of all living, 
Yea, throb with that pulse as the sea, 
Neither giving nor sadly misgiving, 
Throbs, nor is free ! 

Lo, I move in the Dance to the beating 
Of ominous drums, to the cry 
Of fifes, to the viols repeating 



13 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Rapt prayers for all passions that die; 
Borne afar in the flow of the measure, 
Keeping time to the tread of the years, 
With a bow as I pass to young pleasure 
Who smiles through her tears. 

For the intricate figures are woven 
Of change, without pause or delay ; 
Comes a clatter of hoofs that are cloven; 
They clash and they patter away, 
And lightly race white-footed slender 
Girls, and they laugh and retire 
Leaving many a foot-trace and tender 
Trod leaf in the mire. 

Or threading the pattern unbroken, 
The rhythmical pattern of change, 
Pacing gravely to solemn words spoken 
Of mysteries sombre and strange, 
I cross in the movements appointed, 
Cross slowly with faltering glance, 
The Shining Ones, mystic, annointed — 
High Priests of the Dance. 

For they chaunt of a Pattern unchanging 
Though woven of change, and their eyes 
Are steady, where other eyes ranging 
Are fearful, or blank with surprise; 



14 



MIRELLA DANCES 

And they move without fluttering pulses 
And the measure they tread is a song 
That neither uplifts nor convulses, 
But soothes and is strong. 

Yet they pass and repass, and about them 

More maddening music disturbs 

The flamey-eyed Maenads who flout them, 

The Fauns that no gravity curbs; 

And my laughter rings loud in the revels 

As I fling high my heels and break through 

Where the tossing of brown arms dishevels 

The garlanded crew ! 

O dancers, whose dance is a questing, 
Sad dancers, mad dancers, and ye 
Whose majestical motion no jesting 
Can rob of calm power, — unto me 
No one tune was set ; I must mingle 
With all, dance with all, till I find 
One Thought, one Desire that is single, 
One Love that is kind. 

MIRELLA DANCES 



Sadie Bimberg — that's her name 
Down in Houston Street; 



15 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

And her brother, Isidore, 
With his family — wife, and four — 
Lives there now, unknown to fame: 
He sells Kosher meat. 

Sadie used to work 

In Lasalle's department store; 

Wasn't thirteen when she started 

(White and scrawny, with big eyes 

Black and lustrous, and black hair 

In two pig-tails tied with red; 

Over-tall and under-fed!) 

On the dubious ascent 

Toward a living wage . . . But shirk — 

Always, from the very first — 

All she durst ! 

Dared to dream she wasn't meant 

To live in a tenement, 

Help her mother pay the rent: 

"What a foolishness," thought Sadie, 

"I was born to be a lady !" 

So a little past sixteen 

Sadie disappeared. 

"On the streets — that's where she'll end,' 

Said each reassuring friend 

To the little crooked mother 

Brooding: on a fate she feared. 



16 



MIRELLA DANCES 

"Sadie always was that mean !" 
Grumbled Isidore, the brother, 
Plucking at his silky beard . . 



Out from the wings, half-shy, as half-afraid, 
Timidly poised as if for startled flight, 
Fawn-like she steps, and round her hesitant feet 
Lurks the charmed circle of the calcium light. 
A moment thus, as by her fears delayed, 
She harkens — dryad! — to the sensuous beat 
Of savage rhythms, then half-emboldened sways 
A little from the hips, and then more bold, 
No longer she delays — 

Maenad ! — but with fierce glee and sensual glance, 
Lithe, amorous, ecstatic, uncontrolled — 
Leaps to the footlights in tempestuous dance. 
And they who sit within the darkened hall 
Feast quick insatiate eyes and smite their hands 
When breathless, brazen, palpitant she stands 
Before the curtain for her twentieth call. 
Twice daily this her triumph, and she knows 
The only world she knows is at her feet ! . . 



"Mirella" is the name of Broadway's rose: 
They called her Sadie down in Houston Street. 



17 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

NIGHT ARMIES 

The street is gray with rain, 

The gutters run surcharged. All night 
I heard war-chariots sweep the plain 

In one long-rolling wave of fight. 

Now it is dawn, and I can see 

No battle wreck, no littered plain: 

Where do wild night-armies flee? — 
The street is gray with rain. 

And down the street an ash-cart jolts 
Ponderous, and I turn away . . . 

God, how the ghost in man revolts 
Against the day ! 

WASTE 

{To F. P. A. — September ip 1 4) 

Men of practised hand, 
Men of subtle wit, 
Men of curious skill, 
Side by side they stand 
(O the waste of it!) 
At the War Lord's will; 
Side by side they lie 
Under a calm sky — 
Waiting a command: 



18 



WASTE 

Ah! it comes at last . . . 

Kill— 
Forget the past — 

Kill! 

It is not yours to weave, 

Or bake, or brew; 
I order you to cleave 

And burn and hew ! 
Forward, 'tis yours to fell 

Or, fighting, fall; 
To question is not well — 

Obey my call ! 

You, with the student's face, 

The thoughtful brow, 
It is not yours to trace 
The annals of the race, 

Or ponder now 
Man's lineage from the brute — 

'Tis yours to shoot! 

You, there, in shadow! Joy-maker? Put by 
Your happy dreams ! 
Singer, what need have I 
For aught save the harsh cry 
Of hate? And you, loved poet, you it seems 
Must stop one bullet to fulfil my schemes — 
'Tis yours to die. 



19 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

You, man of science, haste ! It matters not 
That you have left behind 
No fellow master of your patient thought, 
No equal power of mind. 
Have you not heard 
My word? 
Then heed 
My need! 
For I am pledged to feed 

With blood yon cannon's shot . . . 
Forward! Can you not bleed? 

Ye, taught to build, tear down ! 
Ye, taught to plant, uproot ! 
Genius or gibbering clown, 
I care not — so ye shoot 
Straight, and press on! 'Tis mine 
To give the sign. 

Chance atoms in my hand, 
Scarce recking whence ye came, 
I fling ye forth like sand 
Into the eyes of Truth ! 
Ye are young? But what is youth? 
Ye are famous? What is fame, 
Till I have dared and won, 
Or risking all have lost 
(To-morrow's be the cost!), 
My triumph in the sun? 



20 



IN MEMORIAM 

NOTRE DAME DE RHEIMS, SEPTEMBER 1914 

Men raised thee with loving hands; 
Thy stones, more precious than gems. 
They wrought for a Light to the Lands; 
Now the Light of all Lands condemns 
Hun and Vandal and Goth 
Who serve the Lords of the Night, 
Who have turned the coat of their troth 
And darkened Our Lady of Light. 

Men made thee beautiful, yea 
Their hearts flowed out as they wrought; 
Thou wast builded not for a day, 
For an age thou wast builded not: 
And they carved thy portals and towers 
For peer and burgher and clown, 
That the Book of Our Lady's Hours 
Might endure tho' the sun burned down. 

By the grace of thy ruined rose, 
By the sullied strength of thy towers, 
Thou shalt triumph, Lady ! Thy foes 
Shall cower as the hunted cowers. 
Thou hast not fallen in vain — 
Fallen? Thou canst not fall: 
They shall crave thy pity in pain, 
Who flung thee hate for a pall. 

21 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

THANKSGIVING DAY 

(November, 1914) 

Mild the air; the lifeless grass 

Is powdered with wan gold; 

Wraith-like the shadows pass; 

The world seems old, 

Old, and a little tired, yet somehow sweet 

With the dry sweetness of resigned decay; 

The sky is cloudless, but the sky is gray. 

Peace. It is peaceful here; and peace is well — 
Even the feeble peacefulness of age; 
From the far village sounds a solemn bell . . . 
Peace. Let the heathen rage. 

Soon in the village church good folk will praise 
The Lord of Israel for gifts of corn, 
For bounteous harvests over all the land, 
Pale wheat and tawny maize, 
Poured from His casual horn. 

I see the elders stand 

With fixed, unquestioning eyes; I hear them raise 
Strained, quavering voices in a passionless psalm . . 
Thou givest bread, God, and length of days; 
We magnify Thy name! . . . 'Tis strangely calm 
This strange Thanksgiving morn. 



22 



DE GUSTIBUS . . . 

Or do I dream? 

Do I but dream these muted hours of gold? 

Shall I awake, upstarting with a scream, 

To hear again that murderous thunder rolled 

Over the sleety wold? 

Christ ! how they spit and gleam 

Out of the bitter night, those guns ! Squat low, 

My brothers, hug your icy trench till dawn! 

With the first light may it be ours to go 

Forward, if . . . 

No! 
'Twas but the corner of some vast curtain drawn 
A heart-beat ! swift it closes . . . and I see 
Only pale fields that lie in revery, 
Hushed, — and more near to me, 
A patient nuthatch exploring spirally, 
Head-downward, my most ancient apple-tree; 
While five nun-hooded j uncos busily 
Inspect the meagre seed-plot of my lawn. 

DE GUSTIBUS . . . 

"Five hundred slain" 

(Round numbers have a way 

Of muffling up the nerves) . . . 

Last night a mother-hungry woman lay 

Wasting her longed-for pain 

To bring forth a dead child . . . 



23 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

A slight twig swerves 

One ill-aimed bullet, and it stops a heart . 

Dark Plotter of these never-closing curves, 

I — long unreconciled — 

Tremble before, but envy not your Art. 



CUI BONO—? 

(May, 1915) 

You have not seen my iris garden . . . There, 
As May melts into June, the tall stalks lift 
Light crowns of madder, violet, amber-rose, 
Pearl-white, or opaline-azure; and they glow — 
Glow as with heart-held radiance, lantern-flowers 
Lifted on slender lances ! Could you see them, 
As now I see them, you would catch breath and dream 
Of celestial armies conquering for love, by love — 
And not for hate, by hate . . . And so, having felt 
That sudden lump sheer beauty sets in the throat, 
Having briefly dreamed — What then? 

Why, then, perhaps, 
You would say, as now I say: "The world's no place 
For flowers, or those who tend them. What's the 
news?" 



24 



INTERVAL 

i 
Mildly the muted sun-rays pause 
On yonder seaward-sloping hill: 
The world is still, my heart is still . . . 
Veiled and unveiled in amber-dusky gauze 
Loose-limbed September lies, 
Near to a pulseless sea, 
Staring on vacancy 

With unperceiving, weary-lidded eyes. 
Unfelt, her passionless lover for a space, 
I am content to trace 

The subtle line, the reticent, meagre grace 
Of her brown slender body. I could die 
Unmoved, unnoted, as the last light dies, 
Musing of her tired wantonness, 
Her sullen, wistful face. 
Stripped of desire am I, 
And would not press, 

Even if I might, my lips to the tawny tress, 
That heavy-stranded tress, 

Languid along her arched shoulder. . . Yet, 
O all-unconscious one, 
Not soon, not ever shall I now forget 
Life's hush when I have loved without desire 
Thee, gypsy, brooding in the pale, pale fire 
Of the withdrawing sun. 

ii 

Life to the poet is desolating rapture, 

25 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Ineffable bright pain, lovely despair, 

Dark joy; to him nothing is single, naught 

Fluxes to clearness in his turbulent thought: 

He finds not anywhere 

The simple heart's unvexed limpidity; 

Nor, though he strain beyond the stars to capture 

The vast repose of Godhead, may he wing 

Serene amid the silences. . . . For he 

Is the spoiled child of the Earth-Mother: cling 

He must about her though he wander far ! 

His soul is alien to a purer star. 

Her ancient trouble brought him forth, her grim 

Travail, — he wearies of the seraphim 

And the unvarying peace whereof they sing. 



Yet it is well for him 

If suavely, unrestrainedly, 

The ever-harrowed sea 

Lie for a drawn breath fallow, and the night 

Seem severed by a held breath from the day, 

And song's lone agitations ebb away 

Ere that deep breath suspires 

To loose the charmed light, 

And life is a dull'd harp with slackened wires 

Wherefrom love's fingers slip, nor seek to play. 

Thus, only thus, within a held breath's span — 

The poet's unregarded holiday — 



26 



BALLAD OF ONE AWAKE 

May he no more be more and less than man: 

Thus only for a fugitive interlude 

May rest, rest. . . . 

Like thee, September, passive on Earth's breast, 

Thy wanton heart subdued 

By a chance dream of God's pure quietude. 

BALLAD OF ONE AWAKE 

No, no — I will not sleep; not yet . . the night is cool; 
I will sit open-eyed and dream wild dreams of you, 
I will sit open-eyed and dream your heart was true, 
Dream that you did not play the jade, nor I the fool. . . 

Was it yesterday or a year, 
Alas, 
The year-long days and the day-long years ! 
Was it yesterday or a year ago 
I felt you pass? 
But I really know 
The hour, and the very tint of the grass 

Along the hill as you came to me; 
The very tint of grass I see 
In the elvish afterglow. 

You came to me, you came to me, 
But came with undelaying feet, 
Too sure, too perilously complete 

27 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

In unpersuasive sympathy. 

And the first word you spoke was dead, 

Dead as the dead dream in your heart, 

And all your ecstasy of art 

Could not make live the word you said. . . 

That word was "love", 

But without breath 
It failed and fluttered not . . Enough ! 

That word was "death"! 

I knew it "death" and read it "life", 

I held you in my arms as wife, 

And in my arms as wife you lay 

Many a night — and many a day 

You clung about me like surprise 

Held captive willingly, like joy 

Self-lured to linger, and your eyes 

Seemed far too tender to destroy 

(Dim as they were, or seemed, with bliss), 

And there was moonlight in your kiss ! 

Suddenly you kissed me not, 
Suddenly caressed me not; 
Ah, sweet, since you missed me not, 
In mercy, sweet, molest me not ! 
Let me not weep, 
Let me forget, 
Leave to me sleep ! 
And yet . . . 



28 



BALLAD OF ONE ASLEEP 

No, no, I will not, must not sleep . . the night is cool; 
I will rage open-eyed and shape mad dreams of you; 
I will sit open-eyed and dream your heart was true, 
Dream that you did not play the jade, nor I the fool. 

BALLAD OF ONE ASLEEP 

The night I died was very still, 

Frost-still and hushful as a ghostless grave: 

I stood up naked on a naked hill, 

Free, beautiful, and brave. 

Over me were familiar stars, 

Below in the hollow a half -remembered light — 

And known and tried shone the steep path to Mars, 

As I lifted from the night! 

Yea, known and tried seemed wheresoe'er I sped, 

Known, tried, and excellent; 

I wondered not at my new hardihead 

In God's new element. 

I rose upon eternity 

Like a still flame, 

And the eternal was a home to me, 

And a recovered name. 

But in my spaceless orbiting I passed 
One spot of dread, 
One alien spot of terror, and at last 
It drew and fixed me by a pallet-bed: 

29 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Clay moulded in my likeness lay on it, 

And a tortured form of clay, 

Young harrowingly, by that poor shape did sit 

And weep alway. 

It irked me that so frail a thing 

Should bend thus in perplexing grief, whilst I 

Balanced on flamey wing . . . 

Therefore I helped her die; 

And she swept to me on the naked hill 

And stood up by my side, 

And the night, ere we rose from it, was still 

As the night when I died. 

FIRE FLIES 

Out from under the eaves 

I look to a world of leaves; 

Dark are the leaves, dark 

Is the sultry park. 

The tree-toads thrill and shrill 

From the swamp-land under the hill: 

My heart is heavy . 



Mark ! 



Spark following liquid spark, 
Blue with a glint of green, 
Green with a glint of blue . . 
Now a dozen, now one or two, 
Now an hundred may be seen 

30 



BY A NAMELESS GRAVE 

Crossing with briefest fire 

The hot still curtain of night . . 

They gleam . . vanish . . gleam . . 

Impalpable as a dream . . 

Bright . . for a moment . . bright . . 

Brief . . brief . . frail . . 

Yet comes their energy 

From the central Fire, the Flame 

No tongue can name ! 

'Tis the Fire that burns in me, 

Burns for a moment ere I 

Yield to the dark and die ... 

BY A NAMELESS GRAVE 

They laid you here one day — 

Man, woman, child — ? 

And then they went their way, 

Grieving a little, most of them, no doubt: 

For it were strange if you had none to grieve 

A little — stranger if they mourned you long . 

Life must be lived, and so it comes that we 

Are quickly "reconciled". 

We dare not leave 

The highway or the throng, 

Nor stepping out 

Into some place of silence, privily, 

Keep tryst with memory, — 



31 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

We dare not weep apart, 

Lest other tongues outbid us in the mart 

For gold and golden trappings and gay leisure, 

For opal moments and marmoreal hours, 

Laurel and pompous flowers, 

And all the lusted braveries of pleasure. 

Man, woman, child — ? 

They did not cut your name 

In the plain headstone leaning to its fall. 

They spared you that poor mockery of fame . . 

I may not guess at all 

Your form or features, or your tale of days. 

Peace and farewell — unenvied, undefiled, 

Exempt from casual blame, 

Or casual praise. 

THE TEMPLE 

Hear me, brother ! 
Boldly I stepped into the Temple, 
Into the Temple where the God dwells 
Veiled with Seven Veils, 
Into the Temple of Unbroken Silence: 
And my joyous feet shod with crimson sandals 
Rang out on the tesselated pavement, 
Rang out fearlessly 
Like a challenge and a cry ! 
And there — in that shrouded solitude, 



32 



THE TEMPLE 

There — before the Seven Veils, 

There — because of youth and youth's madness, 

Because of love and love's unresting heart, 

There did I sing three songs ! 

And my first song praised the eyes of a wanton; 

And my second song praised the lips of a wanton; 

And my third song praised the feet of a dancing girl ! 

Thus did I desecrate the Temple, 

Thus did I stand before the Seven Veils, 

Proudly ! 

Thus did I wait upon the God's Voice — 

Proudly !— 

And the sudden shaft of death . . . 

But no Voice stirred the Seven Veils, 
Though I stood long ... 

And my knees shook, 
My bones were afraid . . . 

Swiftly I loosed the crimson sandals, 
And, tearing them from off my feet, 
Crept shuddering forth! 

Hear me, brother ! 
Now am I as one stricken with palsy, 
Now am I sick with the close ache of terror, 
Now am I as one who, having tasted poison, 
Cowers, waiting for the pang! 



33 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

For the God spake not . . . 

And the sense of my littleness is upon me: 

And I am a worm in my own sight, 

Trodden and helpless; 

A casual grain of sand 

Indistinguishable amid a million grains: 

And I take no pleasure now in youth 

Nor in youth's madness, 

In love 

Nor in love's unresting heart; 

And I praise no longer the eyes of a wanton, 

Nor the lips of a wanton, 

Nor the light feet of a dancing girl. 



ONLY NOT TO BE TOO EARLY OLD 

Only not to be too early old; 
Only not to feel too soon the day 
Emptied of all desire, unyielding gray; 
Only not to sink too weary and cold 
For fireside mirth, for friendly talk, for free 
Soul-kindling thought "about it and about"; 
Nay, I would rather end life in a rout, 
Stricken low by folly, dropping with a laugh. 

Than creep thus tamely out 
Trailing the tatters of my mystery 
To the dull cadence of an epitaph. 



34 



WE OF THE BORDERLAND . . . 

We who are hardly of the sons of men, 

We of the borderland twixt star and star, 

Who meet stray voices, dog wilful lightnings laughing 

Athwart the well-ordered world of use and wont, 

Who dance above your dreams and leap for magic 

Beyond the reluctant outposts of the soul, — 

We are not as your children . . . The reckless Sim 

Yields of his plenitude to all, but pours 

For us from his crimson chalice of unrest. 

We are harried by the cold fervor of the sea, 

Strung by the dawn to outcry, torn by gusts 

From the desired Unknown. We may not veil 

Our eyes, stop ears, or shroud our sentient flesh 

From love's intrinsicate beauty. 

Ye who buy 
Cheap and sell dear, who weigh the average loss 
Against the average profit; ye who walk 
Your solid pavements with the certain tread 
Of citizens that say "To-morrow I go 
To Boston by the nine-fifteen express, 
And the next morning I take the ten-fifteen," 
Troubled by no bleak' vision of dark wings 
Hovering, by no harrowing flash that all 
Your wits have moulded into use and wont 
Is streaming star-dust and flux of ruined suns; 
Ye who are mortised to the earth — ye are wise ! 

Thus we, the graceless mountebanks of God, 

Salute you, pipe for you when ye have dined, and smile 

35 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Two smiles — one lip-smile, one of secret mirth — 

When ye are moved to praise our artistry. 

Alms, alms, good burghers, alms ! O rare is the j est ! 

That love-song pleased you? It is yours. That strain 

Tickled your senses? It is yours. We live, 

We die, to serve you — O assuredly 

We live and die to serve you . . . and pass on. 

Heard ye not then sly laughter from the moon — ? 

THE HEROES 

Prometheus 
Heaven yielded fire to my unconquered will ! 
I was the foe of Zeus . . 

Brennus 

Rome smoked when I 
Leaped with my wolf-pack from the wilderness. 

Caesar 
Ay, but your Gaulish folk bowed to my legions, 
As Rome to me . . 

Alexander 

Rome was not worth my sword. 
Persia became my prowess well; the Nile 
Ran red with native blood at my command; 
The desert Sphynx lowered her eyes before me . . 

Don Quixote 
My levelled lances smote through giants' mail. 

36 



THE HEROES 

Bernard Shaw 
My paradoxes have abased the mighty. 

Apollo 
Song lives upon men's lips because of me; 
I wing my golden arrows yet from heaven; 
I . . 

A Confusion of Voices 
I . . I . . I . . . 

A Woman's Voice 

My lover died, 
Leaving me quick with child; I fainted not; 
In agony I bore him, and with patience 
Nursed, reared him, and my son neglected me 
For one white-throated, one with weightier hair, 
One with alert incomparable eyes: 
I prayed for him — I fainted not — I died. 

A Confusion of Voices 
I . . I . . I . . . 

A Laborer 

Ye are great folk. My hands 
Wrought with a trowel fifty years . . 
Grave Digger 

My hands 
Wrought with a spade . . 
Lucifer 

Fool, fools ! 
Jesus 

Nay, suffer them. 

37 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

They speak as boastful children when their games 
Are over, when the evening falls, and they 
Clap baby hands and with shrill ecstasy 
Magnify each his little triumph. God 
Pays little heed to childish clamor . . 

Lucifer 

God 
Pays little heed to aught save His Sole Self. 

Jesus 
Ah Lucifer ! 

Voices, dispersedly 
I smote . . I dared . . I conquered . . . 

Jesus 
Yea, but my secret ones who clamor not, 
Who lived out simple and enduring lives, 
Lived simply and endured and suffered, these 
Nestle within the eternal peace of heaven. 

Lucifer 
Stagnation broods with them ; mine are the Heroes 



THE COMRADE 

Call me friend or foe, 

Little I care ! 
I go with all who go 

Daring to dare. 

39 



THIS POEM 

I am the force, 

I am the fire, 
I am the secret source 

Of desire. 

I am the urge, 

The spur and thong: 
Moon of the tides that surge 

Into song! 

Call me friend or foe, 

Little care I, 
I go with all who go 

Singing to die. 

Call me friend or foe. . . 

Taking to give, 
I go with all who go 

Dying to live. 



THIS POEM 

If this poem should go 
To one not known to me, 
And whispering whisper low: 
What troubles thee? 

If this poem should pass 
To one alone with pain, 

38 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

And murmur, See — the grass! 
Or, List — the rain! 

If this poem should seek 
One comfortless and seem 
To press a tear-stained cheek 
With lips of dream . . . 

Ah then this poem were, 
Albeit a homely thing, 
My heart's true messenger 
Worthily swift to bear 
Love's signet-ring. 

I KNOW A GARDEN . . . 

I know a garden hung in air 
Above the dim Salernian sea, 
A garden excellently fair, 
Remote, walled in mysteriously; 

A garden in a lonely place, 
Clinging about a ruined pile: 
The curious wanderer still may trace 
Column and court and peristyle. 

The curious wanderer still may find, 
Fretted with yellow roses there, 
Quaint arabesques by Moors designed 
To grace the garden hung in air. 



40 



I KNOW A GARDEN . . . 

And still a curious eye may peer 
Between thick cypress-stems and see 
Circled with passion-flowers the sheer 
Rude strength of Norman masonry. 

But ah, far lovelier in decay 
Are these dead stones that prop the rose, 
The ruined strength of yesterday 
Clad round with beauty and repose! 

Far lovelier since the strong men died 
Who reared them up in strife and hate, 
Revenge and rapine, these their pride 
Which knew no yielding — save to fate. 

For now a terrace fronts the sea, 
Spread far below, and thence the eye 
Can sweep the coast toward Sicily 
And many a margent town descry: 

White-roofed Minori, where the boats 
Lie evenly along the strand, 
Maiori, off whose whiteness floats 
A white sail bound for lotos land. 

But though it pierce the utmost blue 
Where sea and sky meet to increase 
The deep translucence of their hue, 
'Twill but discern a deeper peace. 



41 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

No pirate galley mars the bliss, 
No burning village smokes, no gleam 
Of reckless steel discolors this 
Unblemished tapestry of dream. 

Life is at rest here. Nature weaves 
A spell of honied silence round, 
With incantations of still leaves 
And soft enchantments sweetly bound 

To Norman tower and Moorish court 
By odorous garlands of the rose . . . 
Here comes no passion, fierce and short 
Here only comes at evening's close 

A tinkle of far bells, a song 
From some far hill-side faintly heard 
{Man passes, nature's life is long, 
It sighs), the twitter of a bird, 

The rustle of a lizard's feet — 
Along that roseate wall he ran 
Whisking, inimitably fleet, 
Amid the dry valerian. 

Only these trivial whispering things, 
Deepening the peace, till wish and will 
Die out with the last whisperings, 
And life seems death, it is so still. 



42 



ITALIA 

The poet's heart-felt home is Italy; 

Her gifts are poet-gifts for dreaming men . . . 

Whether on Paestum's plain she languidly 

Accept his prayers to the old Gods again; 

Or whether on Ravello's height she take 

His head upon her bosom, lest he wake 

To the unloveliness of life and pen 

The tiniest song of disillusionment; 

Or whether at her amplest she content 

His sensitive spirit with an Umbrian smile 

(Wide, wide and warm along the ripening wheat 

Soft-flecked with the olive's quivering shade, and 
sweet, 

Sweet as the smile Luini's women wear!), 
Or if she bind about him her dark hair — 
Camaldulensian forests, aisle on aisle 
Like strand on strand, — always she does invent 
New music for his being's rhythmic need: 
Ever new harmonies, which yet outpour 
(As fire-bright poppies out-leap from hidden seed) 
In quenchless fountains from her antique breast . . . 
Ah, hers it is to minister indeed 
The undying beauty born of earth's dark core, 
Not elsewhere so divinely manifest. 



43 



THE MIDDLE MILES 
TO A CERTAIN NOBLE GENTLEMAN 

{With a Salutation to J. Henri Fabre*) 

Not you, sir, in whose family the blood 

Of noble folk has pulsed three hundred years, 

It is not you who bind one leaf the more 

To the green wreath of deeply laurelled France: 

No, but an old man worn with bitter toil, 

Worn but not broken; one whose ancestry 

Is dark with darkness of a night unstarred; 

Whose peasant forebears read nor book nor man 

Nor the strange palimpsest of nature; one 

Marked by the usage of the world for slave 

Unto a meagre life of weary days — 

Not you, sir, but this son of peasant sons 

Has drawn the far world's homage, and unto France 

(Proud mother of proud sons) adds faultless fame. 

Brave Henri Fabre, brave mind and braver heart! 
Humbly we bend the knee to you, for God 
Hid in your dust the authentic spark . . His fire 
Shines with compelling flame from gold or clay — 
Yet clay to Him seems dearer, and the lamps 
Of Heaven are simple vessels, but o'erbrimmed 
With unconsuming oil. How patiently 
(As with a quiet smile) does God reward 
Man's courtly and presumptuous embassies 
By sending home a little kneaded earth, 

44 



PAMPARIGOUSTO 

Red earth and rudely fashioned, but therein 

A secret star, a smouldering sun, a light 

Beyond the dream of princes ! And we sing 

The shimmering songs of plowboys . . . and are wise 

A little now because in Serignan 

There is an eye to read, a heart to feel, 

A voice to speak things locked in Nature's breast — 

Sealed from the great how many centuries ! 

# Died Oct., 1915, two years after these lines were written. 

PAMPARIGOUSTO 

i 

Somewhere among the pale Provencal hills 

An indistinguishable path departs 

Toward a far city whose more glamorous marts 

Offer no various merchandise of ills. 

Naught is for sale there, yet the hungry fills 

His skin with fattest capon and golden wine 

Which some thrice-honeyed vineyard there distils; 

And they with frosty hearts 
Find love to warm them — earthly or divine; 

And they who serve the arts 
Find there more poignant chords, a purer line, 
Palettes with colors mixed of fire and dew; 

And there the old renew 
Youth, but without youth's restlessness, and the young 
Gain calm there ; the blind — eyes ; the dumb — a tongue. 

45 



THE MIDDLE MILES 



Now would to God this path to men were known! 
Known to sad men perplexed by life's lost joys; 
Known to sad women stunned by perplexing cares ; 
Known to unflowering girls, to stunted boys; 

Would God this path were theirs 
To follow, follow away beyond the Rhone, 
Yea, far beyond Tarascon, and Beaucaire — 
Famed of her motley Fair, 

Within whose booths no talisman's for sale 
Can such as these avail, — 
Beyond Avignon's desolated throne, 
Far on, far on, whither it winds alone 
(Unmarked, save by some more fantastic branch 
Of knotted olive, or some white casual stone) — 
Far on, far on, whither this blind path leads, 

Deft, wary, sinuous, shy, 
Athwart Les Baux where the worn Alpilles blanch 

Under their silver sky; 
Thence on, far off beyond all crafts and creeds, 

Beyond death's latest cry, 
Unto that City where none need ever die, 

Nor lack the thing he needs. 



Vain is my heart-felt wish; vain were the quest 
After this enigmatic trail to bliss ! 
Yet surely somewhere near St. Remy is 



46 



LOURDES 

The starting foot-way toward this fairest, best, 

Most admirable City, famed and sung 

By sun-burnt poets in their sun-warmed tongue; 

Nor dare I hope to praise with equal zest 

Pamparigousto — high fantastical, 

Where naught is stale, nor any sweets can pall— 

(Pray heaven some day we find it after all!) 
Pamparigousto — City of the Blest. 

LOURDES 

Lourdes ! . . . from our moving window we 

Peered forth and saw the arduous hill 

Crowned with a mimic Calvary; 

Lower the double Church, and still 

Lower the pilgrim throng who fill 

Thy ways, O Lourdes, with pain and prayer . . 

Lady of Lourdes, was it thy will 

To crucify a vale so fair? 

Lady of Lourdes, was it thy will 
To crucify so fair a place? 
Expect not then my prayers ! Thy chill, 
Thy shallow grotto holds no grace 
For me, nor is thy cloying face 
Sweet as September's latest smile: — 
Be thine, O Amber-souled, my praise ! 
Thee would I worship here awhile. 



47 



THE MIDDLE MILES 



It may not be. No lyric hymn 

Stirs for the Amber-souled. My heart 

Droops, sickens, dies ; the world shows grim ; 

September's sunlight has no art 

To mask with colored veils this mart 

Where miracles are bought with pain . . . 

I feel my eyelids swim and smart; 

Beauty has kissed them — but in vain. 

O spot of unexampled wrath 

Where beauty meets with beauty's foe 

And falls down prostrate . . . Prostrate? Hath 

Yon mountain failed in splendor? — No. 

Hath the unpitying Gave de Pau 

Failed in swift brightness? Ah, but I 

Fail of their pagan scorn, nor know 

Whether in life we live or die. 

September's soul of temperate flame 
Quiets to loveliness ; the breeze 
Yet murmurs the inconstant name 
Of summer to the mulberry trees; 
The fragrant noon is laced with bees 
Heavy with sweetness . . . Yea, but near 
Anguish is bending strong men's knees, 
And Nature hears not . . . Does God hear? 



48 



LES ANDELYS 

The unreluctant Seine moves blithely on, 

Blithely yet with a large serenity, 

And slipping fast by Tosny's sleeping spire 

Rounds to the sweetest town of sweetest name 

Its waters lave — Les Andelys — and there 

Draws down the Saucy Castle deep within 

A faultless mirror, echoing the green 

Abundance of fat meadows, echoing 

The wide-drawn circle of these dream-white cliffs — 

Dream-white fantastic bastions whereon the towers 

Of Richard's castle rise fantastically. 

And yet a little farther, past the bridge, 

The clearly moving waters clearly paint 

A line of tiniest houses and a spire 

Of slenderest grace, but paint them up-side-down, 

Each under each, and so with swifter course 

And ruffling surface sweep among green isles 

(Such poplared islands as Corot has seen 

Through misty mornings wearing silver veils) . . . 

Thence proudly onward till a deep curve hides 

The splendid river, but hides not the hills. 

And we who love this ample country know 

How fairly onward in wide curves the Seine 

Caresses many a margent town, but none 

Lovelier in itself nor lovelier 

In the caressing cadence of a name 

Than these twain villages which yet are one . . . 

Big Andely and Little Andely — 

Les Andelys . . . 

49 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

"CLAIR DE LUNE" 

(After Verlaine) 

Your spirit is a dainty place 
Where delicate maskers come and go, 
Playing on lutes and dancing, with a trace 
Of sadness under their fantastic show. 

There, ever singing in a minor strain 
Fortunate life and love's triumphant sway, 
Joyous, they seem to hold all joyance vain . . . 
And with the lucid moonlight blends their lay. 

The lucid moonlight beautiful and tender 
That makes the sleepy birds dream in the trees, 
And the tall fountain-columns, maiden-slender 
Amid their marbles, sob with alien ecstasies. 



AFTER HEARING MUSIC BY 
CLAUDE DEBUSSY 

Pallor of the dead roses of eventide, 

Evanescent silver of frosty petals 

Where the late loveliest moon-flowers quaver and 

die . . . 
Breath of the last faint elfin horn of the night, 
Eerie and low o'er the fern-arch' d runnel . . and now 



50 



LAMENT OF A NEW ENGLAND ART STUDENT 

The mild, the rhythmical dropping of happy tears . . . 
O ghostly incantations, sibilant dreams, 
Tenuous, exquisite lullabies of the soul . . . 
But ah, the waking! the harsh return, the unrest, 
The deep nostalgia for the impermanent spell! 

Wizard, evoker of vanishing moods — is it well? 



LAMENT OF A NEW ENGLAND ART 
STUDENT 

(Adagio, ma non troppo . . . ) 

In the Luxembourg Gardens below the Queens of 

France 
Brown-legged urchins scamper with hair and eyes 

adance ; 
And down the shadier alleys beneath the browning 

trees 
Frail lovers of the Quarter stroll delectably at ease 
In Zion; and I mark them with a wistful envious smile, 
And I would that I were twenty in the happy Pagan 

style 
Of being French and twenty, and I would that I could 

taste 
The naive joy of Gaston when his arm is around her 

waist. 
But woe is me, my forebears chose to agonize and pray 



51 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

To a God who lived on vengeance in a most appalling 

way, 
Who kept a strong fire burning for souls that couldn't 

kill 
The joy of life within them: — and I am suffering still 
Because in lonely Sal em-town they agonized and prayed 
To be delivered from the wiles of Satan and a maid. 
So I sit alone and watch them with a wistful wondering 

sigh, 
Frail lovers of the Quarter who are happier than I; 
And I would that I were twenty in the unassuming 

style 
Of being French and twenty, and I half-contrive a 

smile 
Of superior disenchantment . . . but my timid pulses 

dance 
Like the brown-legged urchins singing there below the 

the Queens of France, 
In the Luxembourg Gardens — below the Queens of 

France. 

STROLLER'S SONG 

Open your heart to me; I will not wait 

Forever at the gate. 

I do not tarry at unwelcoming doors. 

Open your heart, and I will sing, 

Within its hushed and somber-pallid walls, 



52 



POOR PIERROT . . . 

Where never a lusty, dusty footstep falls, 

Such buxom caroling, 

So richly phrased, so buoyantly elate, 

As the vibrant veery pours 

Unto its mate. 

Let me but leap within on ringing heel, 

Throw wide love's casement to the unshuttered 

day, 
And bear your nun-like soul away, 
Till it has learned not how to pray, 
But how to feel ! 



POOR PIERROT 



Let me escape confusion; let me find 

Some clue, though false, to lead me through the world ! 

I would not wander blind, 

Giddy, extravagantly buffeted, 

Fantastically whirled 

By the slant atom-rain of life's desires. 

Man's soul was not designed 

To play the mountebank — heels over head, 

To dance along slack wires 

Of conscience, but to tread 

Firmly along well-ordered paths. The mind 

Is not God's zany ! . . Often have I said 

53 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Mad words, mad deeds have often done 

(O motley fool!)— 
Have often capered to the unsparing sun 

(O motley fool!)— 
But now at last — at last — my clowning's done: 
I mean to live by rule. 

ii 

Yet — yet — yet — yet . . . 

O youth, O golden heart, 

O light-foot and illustrious waywardness ! 

Let me not too soon forget 

(Columbine — Mignonette — ) 
All the memories that start 
Forth from thy deserted shrine, 

Youth of mine ! 
'Tis time to leave them, I confess: 
But O the old-time waywardness, 
Light-foot illustrious waywardness . . . 
(Ah Mignonette, alas! — woe's me — ah Columbine!) 



MY CITY WINDOW FRONTS THE SKY 

My city window fronts the sky 
Across tin roofs and chimney squares; 
Its blueness does not satisfy, 
It does not lure me unawares 



54 



MY CITY WINDOW FRONTS THE SKY . . 

To lose in dream the sharp unrest 

That haunts the mind where millions strive 

Angrily for the unpossessed — 

Power, wealth ! It does not keep alive 

The soul's contentment. How should sky 
(Space merely, color merely) give 
More to the heart than to the eye? 
Blue is but blue. We cannot live 

On the imponderably fair; 
We cannot use the stars, nor make 
The moon spin luxuries, the air 
Exalt us when its banners shake. 

And yet I half-remember days 
When the sky's magic solaced me, 
When wandering shy, unthrifty ways 
I felt expand immeasurably 

My faith in man as something more 
Than earth reveals him, felt indeed 
Man's spirit vaster than his lore, 
His peddling ethics, peddler creed. 

Half-memories serve not . . . Here, who sees 
More in the sky than tinted space, 
Here, who would cloud with mysteries 
The on-rush of the market-place? 



55 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Poor sentimentalist, behold 

Life passes — live, then, ere you die ! 

Is there not power and fame and gold — ? 

My city window fronts the shy. 

THE ESCAPE 

Out from the whirl of factional unrest, 

Out from the city clamor and spent steam 

Of speculative scheme and counter-scheme, 

Out from the curdling spume, the very crest 

Of time's froth-feathered wave, I spring — and seem 

At once in a far land my heart loves best: 

A land of sheltered valleys, a green nest 

For the wise leisure of luxurious dream. 

There, a familiar native, I frequent 

The shade of ancient ilexes, or pass 

A rippling shadow over rippling grass, 

Or leap unharmed down some sheer, swift descent, 

A light-foot Mercury; or else I lie 

Like a still lake hoarding the azure sky. 

THE CHANGE 

A year ago I sang with ecstasy 
Love's song for youth, set to a plaintive tune; 
Then melancholy rhymes were all to me . . . 
But now I am impatient with the moon! 



56 



THE CHANGE 

For now life's garden solaces, the dream, 
The glamour, the enchanted way of fears, 
Are barren to my soul; and verses seem 
Crystal too frail for the strong wine of tears. 

I am confronted now with fiends that tear 
All sensuous veils of beauty from life's face; 
And I have looked on souls made gaunt and bare, 
Naked and shame-worn in a shameful place. 

No more, no more of lilies, O no more 
Of sumptuous lilies by a midnight pool! 
I have dislimned these visions seen before 
Joy's deep betrayal put my heart to school. 

Now if I speak my soul out, I must speak 
Words of right pity, words of strength, and say 
Truth's tonic incantation for the weak, 
Nor waste my wits on sonnet or virelay ! 

Strange ! for a year ago with ecstasy 

I set youth's longing to a Circean tune; 

Then the white arms of beauty beckoned me . . . 

But now I am impatient with the moon. 



57 



THE MIDDLE MILES 
APOLOGIA 



Here on this little hill 

The world seems still, 
Mild as a sleeping child; 

Though dull'd and far away 

A pigmy dray 
Jars, and toy trolley cars 

Pipe at a distant curve, 

But only serve 
Thus to make fabulous 

The tale of trafficking men 

Unsated when 
They have out-toil'd the day. 



Here is no task, no toil; 

Like amber oil 
Drips sunlight from the tips 

Of apple leaves, and here 

The wastrel year 
Waits at rich Autumn's gates. 

58 



APOLOGIA 

I too have waited long 

Largesse of song, 
Mute as an unlipp'd flute, 

But now am moved to sing 

This alien thing, 
This rude antithesis 

Of my calm hour, to praise 

All men whose days 
Seem empty of mere dream. 



Like clacking shells my rhyme 

Beats tuneless time 
Set by earth's Castanet — 

Labor — whose rhythm, alack! 

Of cog and track 
Draws by compulsive laws 



Man's feet from quiet grass 

To where men pass 
Life in reluctant strife. 

59 



THE MIDDLE MILES 



Yet is strife well; for we 

Whose mystery — 
Art — is the counterpart 

Of the all-dreaming Mind, 

Do we not find 
Less of strong happiness 

Than they who rise to meet 

In shop and street 
Work it were death to shirk? 

Is he not wiser thus 
Who simply does 
One duty, which undone 

Leaves the world incomplete, 

Than I who meet 
Shades in the soul's arcades 

And name them by sweet names? 

The known task shames 
Me for my treachery 

Unto man's long affray, 

His day by day 
Fight for his primal right — 

60 



APOLOGIA 

The right to live and win 

Comfort for kin, 
Bread — ere Fate strikes him dead. 

Are we not drones who take 

Honey they make 
Who, without dreaming, do? — 

We who, untrammel'd, sing 

Resurgent Spring; 
Rhyme opulent Summer's prime; 

Paint brooding Autumn's tints, 

Whose breath imprints 
Red where slain youth has bled; 

Carve from cold stone the grace 

Our fond eyes trace 
Where beauty's breast lies bare 

Unto our gaze; or weave 

Deep chords that leave 
Pain ere they sound again . . . 



Surely then work is well: 

But who shall tell 
Why, when man comes to die, 

61 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

The merchandise he wrought 

With tool or thought 
Fades, and lost dream invades 

His tugging soul — that ark 

Whose voyage dark 
Ends whither God intends. 

Staunch ark for what wide sea ! 

Thy freight shall be 
Less than thy roominess 

If thou hast lightered all 

Corporeal, 
And heaped along the strand 

Dead cargoes without worth 

Beyond the earth — 
Cold sophistries of gold. 

VI 

So may it be the heart 

Hath need of art; 
Yea, when the patient day 

Hath ground the grist to flour, 

Mayhap the hour 
Comes when the whirring drums 



62 



APOLOGIA 

Are voiceless, and the soul 

Slips the control 
Of flesh, to turn with love 

Unto a region far 

From needs that bar 
Him from the Seraphim. 

This be our hope who live 

Dreaming to give 
Gleams from our wasteful dreams. 

This be our hope, for this 

Our sole plea is 
When we are judged of men. 

VII 

The spent day's embers sift 
To ash. Stars lift . . . 
I shall but feel the sky, 

Sense the cool grass, and lean 

Like night serene 
Till I have drunk my fill 

Of peace — nor rise perturb'd 

While dream, uncurb'd, 
Grows like a silent rose. 



63 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

MIDWINTER ODE 

Red earth, a rigid lake, sharp-silver'd trees; 

And furtive, thinned by cock-crow, vanishing 

How stealthily (ah, vanished now !) the wraith 

Of January's moon . . . 

Peace; none too soon 

Hast fled, thou frost-belated breath 

Sighed forth by sheeted midnight ! Nay, poor ghost, 

Thou wast betrayed almost 

Into the saffron revelries of dawn . . . 

Well for thee thou hast gone 

Ere gold-bright tresses, forward blown by the breeze 

That may not lead one ripple o'er the lake, 

Lift from the east to fling 

The challenged world awake. 

What meant the churlish King 

Who likened winter to his crooked mind? 

Now is the winter of my full content, 

The winter of my solace and desire . . . 

What though the sun doth hoard his deeper fire, 

He doth not hoard his beauty, but casteth down 

O'er the restricted earth a pure pale crown 

More precious for rare platinum mixed with gold. 

The bare brows of the hills are aureoled; 

No bird-chime rings reveille — but I bless 

The thoughtful day's auguster silentness. 

64 



THE OWL ON WING OF SILENTNESS . . . 

The wan ice suddenly 

Blooms with etherial loveliness. 

And the calm heaven expands, 

While from the tranced lake a mystic rose 

Flowers, meet for plucking of no mortal hands: 

Yet swiftly plucked no less, 

Plucked swiftly and tossed afar 

Beyond the lattice of a waiting star. 

— Ah, who would be 

One season's lackey, when the lucent year 

Turns like a crystal sphere 

Fulfilled of infinite dream! The heart that knows 

But summer, knows not summer — nor the vast 

Sweep of the Sower's cast . . . 

Unwearying, impartially He sows 

His radiant seed that grows 

(Lo, the morn witnesseth — !) 

Even from the chill sterilities of death. 



THE OWL ON WING OF SILENTNESS . 

The owl on wing of silentness 

Drifts through the dusk to strike and kill: 

O Nature, fair and pitiless, 

Is it thy will? 

Why then dost thou, cold Temptress, let 
The beauty of the morning free 



65 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Faint fragrance from the violet, 
And turn each tree 

Into a jubilant shout of song — 
As if thy laws were love and joy? 
Thou canst not hide from us thy wrong, 
Nor yet destroy 

Our sense of thy long cruelty. 
Because thou smil'st we will not smile, 
Nor sanction thy hypocrisy, 
Mother of guile ! 

Pluck out the terrors from thy breast, 
Be gentle not in show but deed, 
And we will own thy children blest: — 
But now they bleed. 

They bleed — and thou art perfecting 
Some oriole's bright bridal dress . . . 
Shame! Maker of the owl's sly wing 
Of silentness ! 

SING FORTH, SING FREE 

Dark in the hemlock sings a hidden bird, 
And if his song has meaning, it is sad, 
A little piping plaint . . . 
Ah me, ah me, ah me! 



66 



SING FORTH, SING FREE 

And if it has no meaning, it is sad; 
Because vain tears are stirred 
By reason of its thin monotony . . . 
Ah me, ah me! 

O merciless bird throw off this weary, faint, 

Unpassionate restraint ! 

Sing forth, sing free ! 

Win to some masterful utterance, even of grief! 

You tease my heart into a restless woe: 

Sing forth, sing free! 

Ah no . . . 

The little querulous plaint slips like a thief 

Into my heart and niches one by one 

My hoarded joys, hoarded for dark to-morrows; 

Yet will not take from me the least of many sorrows. 

Cease then to sing! 

Cease, poet, if thy song 

Be but a wailing and a weary thing, 

Sighed to a rifted lute. 

The unfaltering world has struggled overlong 

To be thus harried and relaxed by thee. 

Either sing forth, sing free 

(As even the sad soul sings when it is strong) — 

Or else be mute. 



67 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

TO A FAIR MORALIST 

You call me Faun . . . Am I indeed so free 
Of old Earth's unregenerate pagan heart? 
Into my eyes do no tears ever start? 
Am I untouched by sorrow's mystery? 
Throbs life so frankly in the veins of me 
That just to caper, just to fling the heel, 
Expressing the sharp joy my senses feel, 
Is all my law and my morality? 

You call me Faun . . . Is it because I follow 
That fleeing Nymph, the Present, with desire 
To feel upon my breast her bosom's fire 
And make her deeply mine? Or is it only 
That I repudiate the Past as lonely, 
And call the unrequiting Future hollow? 

WHEN HALF-GODS GO . . . 

Fluttering amid flushed apple-bloom 
A starling dances on the bough; 
I watch him from my quiet room 
Caper with clown-like mop and mow. 

His eerie whistle tricks the ear; 
Half zany, half ventriloquist, 
He mocks the sweetness of the year — 
A cynical, sly amorist. 



68 



QUESTION OF PROPERTY 

Spite of myself, I smile; and still 
Love him not. While this jaunty thing 
Prances, and snaps his witty bill — 
I shall not hear my blue-bird sing. 

QUESTION OF PROPERTY 

Blue-bird, balancing on my little pear-tree, 

You know not of trespass; 

Know not the earth at the tree's root 

Is mine, 

And for rods about it — 

Mine. 

No one may come upon it 

If I gainsay them; 

No one may taste the fruit of my tree 

Without my grudging permit . . . 

Not even a happy child. 

Sing for me, blue-bird ! 

Sing! 

Your weak contralto warble quiets and comforts me. 

Sing ! 'Tis I command you ! 

I — who own the pear-tree, 

And the green earth about it, 

And the fat red worms below the sod. 

You are my pensioner — sing then, or leave me ! 

Nay — ? But you will not? 

69 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

THE WISH 

If once before I die 
It might be given me 
To leap beyond the lie 
Of word-born poetry, 

To leap beyond and sing 

The song no words can tame . . . 

One deeply-troubled string, 

One heart-beat ! That were fame. 



"FRAIL SINGERS OF TO-DAY" 

Frail singers of to-day, your song is sweet; 

The words that ye repeat 
Are comely, making music as they pass 

Faint as the singing glass 
Rubbed by a moistened finger; round and round 

Circles the rim of sound, 
A thin yet poignant cry. But yesterday 

Men sang a manlier way, 
Plucking rough chords of strength from lyres too rude 

Ever to be subdued 
By this slight tinkling harmony of the hour. 

Awake, awake to power, 

70 



BUT— SOUL? 

Singers of songs — else die ! Far better mute 

Were the emasculate lute, 
Far better silent, than thus chirping on 

An echo of things gone — 
Gone down forever with all those mighty hearts 

Who brook no counterparts. 



BUT— SOUL? 

Delicate little rhythmic flutterings, 
Golden wing-work in diaphanous azure, 
Pearl-like words, one after one — but force, 
But fire of intellect, but soul? 

Ah Poet, 
Turn from these flawless arabesques, turn, turn 
From exquisite and futile patterning! 
Many can say that violets are sweet . . . 



RIVALS 

For one the arid peaks, the stars, 
Remote, austere: 
His song will live. 
For one the golden meadows of the mind, 
Where he can bind 

Frail verses in a sheaf for Beauty — near, 
But fugitive ! 



71 



THE MIDDLE MILES 



WOE TO THE POET WHO FORGETS 
TO DREAM 

Woe to the poet who forgets to dream 
His living dream of beauty ! He shall be 
As severed seaweed on a stagnant sea, 
Dead in the midst of vastness, endlessly 
Buoyed in lank inaction . . . 

Let no gleam, 
Poet, escape thee from the tiniest star, 
Lest, losing thus thine eye's quick prescience, thou 
Become as one defrauded and alone. 
Oh, have a care lest the wind's overtone 
Sing by unheeded and thy slothful ear 
Shut out forever the one ineffable bar 
Of vanishing music thou wast born to hear. 
Poet, thy song is now ! 

To-morrow's song, to-morrow's song falls cold 
From stiffening lips and touches not the heart. 
Forget the world, poet, its praise, its gold, 
Yea, even forget for one brief hour thine art: 
Be ignorantly bold! 

Seize on the dream vouchsafed thee, nor allow 
Its shy-foot presence songless to depart. 



72 



SONS OF MEN 

We seek we know not what of bliss: 
Kissing but lips we strive to kiss 
The soul; we are not satisfied 
If the unimaged be denied. 
Something impalpable we crave. 
The rainbow in the breaking wave. 
And when we long for death, even then 
Beyond death's quietude we quest, 
And discontented with the grave 
Refuse the deep reward of rest — 
Longing to live and long again, 

TO A CHRISTIAN POET. 

I have been as one dead. 

I have forgotten how the sun-rays dart; 

I have ignored the glamour of the stars; 

Cold, cold has been my heart. 

Have I not often in derision said, 

"Life is a little thing of little worth" — 

The while beneath my feet a burgeoning earth 

Healed with young herbage all her ancient scars ? 

Yea, I have sung this thing and deemed it true, 

That life is a brief cruelty and death 

An endless respite. 

You 
Have sung of Nazareth. 



73 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

You have sung sweetly of the Light, the mild 

Insistent Light that penetrates the dust, 

And says unto the soul of man, 'My child, 

Renew your child-like trust.' 

And from your eyes have I not felt a Light, 

A Light of mild, insistent power, 

Defeat with gentleness my scornful vision? 

Have I not learned the darkness of derision, 

And from the calm grace of your spirit's might 

Drawn strength and healing in my bitterest hour? 

Your miracles, your ritual, your laws 

Are to my unfaith as a dream-like play: 

But radiant from your heart is that which draws 

My spirit out of shadow to the day; 

Draws with the silent tension of star on star 

Till I am forced above 

This wreck of system-faiths and borne afar 

By flawless wafture of the wings of Love. 

Most true that you have won me to rely 
On the o'ermastering soul, and to despise 
All acrid cynic thoughts made hideous by 
The grandeur of your deep rewarding eyes. 

TO FRANCIS THOMPSON.. WHITHER? 

Surely in Heaven, master. . yet thy Heaven 

Is fabulous to me, 
Nor may I supplicate on trustful knee 

74 



TO FRANCIS THOMPSON. . . WHITHER? 

Thy Lady Mary in whose heart are seven 
Sharp swords from Calvary. 

The Hound of Love who hunted thee to heal thee 

Tracks not my doubtful ways ; 
I wander blindly a star-woven maze, 
Nor may I part the blue veils that conceal thee 

From my unfaithful gaze. 

And yet I trust thy vision, feel thy prescience, 

And know that thou art where 
All spirits dwell who raptly dream and dare 
To give the radiant lie to man's crude nescience. 

— Shelley is with thee there. 

The Land of Luthany perchance its name is, 

"Set i' the pathless awe" ; 
I know not. . But I know thy soul must draw 
On to that star whose pure unlitten flame is 

The sum and source of Law. 

Master, what matters it? A nameless wonder 

Enfolds us from our birth. 
Weak wistful children of the atom Earth, 
What matters it if more or less we blunder? 

Does it not move to mirth 

When from an infant's puzzling lips we hearken 
Wise prattle of the moon? 



75 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

We smile at cat and fiddle, dish and spoon; 
Then turn to utter solemn words that darken 
Life's undeciphered Rune. 

But forth from troubled hearts and passionate guesses, 

Forth from man's hearth-like breast 
Leaps up a lyric flame toward the Unguess'd, 
A tiny lifting flame that warms and blesses 

And points us to our rest. 

Thy flame yet warms and lightens and shall lighten, 

For thou hast shared thy fire; 
Thou addest fervor to the soul's desire, 
And round thy luminous song new singers brighten, 

Glow, coruscate — aspire ! 

Thy fellowship with pain, thy self-abasement, 

Dread of love's perilous height, 
All that was blind about thee and of night 
Now troubles thee no more. Beyond life's casement 

Thou findest room for flight. 

Falcon of God, the azure of thy pinions 

O'erclimbs my thought. Their hue 
Lives in thy fledgling songs' inseparate blue, 
Dawn-feather'd from empyreal dominions 

Ere thou wast charm'd thereto. 

Charm'd hence, but ah, not wholly ! Thou canst never 
Steal from our hearts thy truth; 

76 



IN IRELAND 

The world seems younger since thou sang'st of youth; 
Nor from fit ears shall any voice dissever 
Thy mystic joy and ruth. 

"The angels keep their ancient places" . . Master, 

Thou hast not failed to be 
One at the timeless tryst, nor tunelessly 
To sing that Song which, for our joy's disaster, 

Earth could not win from thee. 

IN IRELAND. 

(to C. A. B.) 

"In Ireland, holy Ireland" — said the stranger man to 

me — 
"There's menace when the sky's blue, and malice o'er 

the sea; 
"For beauty there's a fey thing, a shy thing , a fleet; 
"And her love-kiss comes at parting, swift and cruel 

sweet." 

"Her kiss it comes at parting" — said the strange man 

and wild — 
"And she goes her ways of wonder like a little lost 

child ; 
"She goes her ways, her lost ways of wonder, but she 

leaves 
"On the lips of the lonely a gay song that grieves." 

77 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

"O STRANGE MONOTONY OF SONG" 

O strange monotony of song! 

Life's joy, 

Life's pain, 

The ecstasy, the agony of love, 

The sharp despair, the solaces of death; 

The irretrievable loss that desolates; 

The daring hope that somewhere beyond change 

Our lost ones wait for us with happier eyes ! 

Strange, strange majestic sameness. . Yesterday, 

To-day, To-morrow — still the ancient cries, 

The ancient voices, the 

Antique imperishable facts of song: 

Life, Love, and Death. 

PER CONTRA 

Give us new songs, ye cry, give us new songs ! 

We weary of an ancient music grown thin and cold! 

We weary of this faint shadow of former mastery. 

New songs! 

Songs for the restless new-born souls of men! 

Urgent songs for the urgent purposeful hour! 

O no more of discredited dead yesterdays; 

No more of that pale witchery named Greece; 

No more of bronze majestic Rome! 

No more of earth's lurid mystical interlude, 



78 



PER CONTRA 

Those mid-world centuries muttering wild dreams, 

Cursing life, the forsworn, 

Cursing the beautiful lithe bodies of men, 

The blond elegance of women, 

Lost in formless famishing ecstasies. . . 

No more of these, we weary of these, ye cry. 

New songs! 

Sing us force and joy: 

Free force about us, within us, 

Joy passionate and concrete; 

Not of sense only — joy of action, joy of mind — 

Such j oy we crave ! 

Sing us to-day's song and to-morrow's song; 

Set to vital tunes, rich with deep unsuspected 

harmonies : 
Flute us no longer on archaic reedy flutes 
Scant plaintive measures. . . 

No, rather strike out crashing seven-hued chords, 
Muscled chords of more powerful, more insistent life ! 
New songs! 

Thus, thus ye cry on us who sing — 
Who sing remembered memorable days, 
Unforgettable loves tenderly nursed by time, 
Mad exquisite deeds worthy a thousand voices, 
Sombre and delicate visions, permanent in perpetual 

evanescence — 
Thus, thus ye cry on us ! And we, 



79 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Late-born lovers of golden melodies, 

Suave flowing measures and blithe recurrent rhymes, 

We sigh, we strain our voices, we shout in vain. 

The detonating seven-hued chords ye seek, 

Our talents find not. 

Yet we rack, jangle at our souls 

To please a jaded world: 

A world that harbors us indeed, 

But garners not our true gifts, and rejects 

( R ightly r e j ects ! ) 

The novel false brute-chested cacophonous noises 

We perpetrate — striving to phrase To-day. 

INCANTATION 

Give me magic, give me sorcery, give me song ! 
Give me the words that are no words, but a dream 
Of a shadow-island astir with a silvery throng, 
A white-rose wraith-like throng of beings who seem 
Clearer, rarer than moonlight on frost-pale lilies, 
Beings of gossamer-tenuous beauty who fade 
Into the quivering pulses of night where the thrill is 
Faint with the delicate joy of their brief masquerade. 

Give me magic, give me sorcery, give me song! 
Give me the words that are no words, but a dream 
Of a fire-bright island aflame with a radiant throng, 
A red-rose wreath-like throng of beings who seem 

80 



IN LIEU OF PREFACE 

Stronger, purer than sunlight on tigerish lilies, 
Beings of resonant beauty who beacon nor fade 
Under the brazen splendor of noon where the thrill is 
Trumpet-ardent for joy of their bold masquerade. . . 

Give me magic, give me sorcery, give me song. . . 
Give me the words that are no words, but a dream! 

IN LIEU OF PREFACE 

From twenty-one to twenty-seven 
I dreamed of sudden fame; 
Each night I saw the vault of heaven 
Illumined by my name. 

But no one else could see the letters 
In flame along the sky, 
And now I've lived to know my betters 
I do not gaze so high. 

Not very far from earth I look now, 
Nor always look in vain; 
The leaves that form this little book now 
Were gathered in the plain. 

Others have climbed the peaks of morning, 
Or soared beyond the stars: 
My feet are in the vale. Take warning. . . 
No Thoroughfare for Mars ! 

81 



THE MIDDLE MILES 



NIGHTMARE 



Through the dark town I fumble; 

No light, no star; 

Blind mist, but no friendly gurgle of rain, 

No drip 

From the low-hung eaves for fellowship; 

And the cobbled street 

Harries my dragging feet 

Till they stumble — stumble . . . 

Blank, menacing town, where are 

The hearts that make you not a tomb? 

Surely in some close-shuttered room 

Sleep fears to cope with pain? 

I dare not hope for laughter — 

But a cry? 

One moan out of the night ere I pass by? 

Silence would seem less sinister thereafter. 

Where are your home- folk — where ? 

Is there no lurking mongrel to growl and scare 

My numbing senses to life again? 

Dim, menacing town — are you a town of men ? 

Does the sun rise here ever on market-day? 

Are papers cried abroad? 

Are children born here? and do they quarrel and play? 

Or is this death, O God? 



82 



MAITRE AROUET'S COMPLAINT 

That son of mine, Francois. . my Fool in Verse 

I call him. . I've an elder Fool, in Prose. . 

Was ever, I ask you, parent cursed with such 

A diverse pair ? . . Armand at the least I know, 

Heels to head; lemon-visaged and — correct. 

I count on him ; he's safe — and tedious . . Bah ! 

But Francois — there's a limb ! He bleeds quicksilver 

From any casual scratch. The boy's possessed 

By seven unresting devils that drive him on 

To his destruction. . Why, from his very birth 

He wrung my heart, and tricked me in the end. 

The midwife gave him a scant hour to live, 

But — Francois never does what one expects ! 

He turned from blue to rosy when the priest 

Put holy water on his brow to wing 

His infant soul toward Heaven, and then — he lived. 

The rogue ! I think 'twas Chateauneuf first named him 

'Le petit volontaire' . . That was his true 

Baptism. Bon Dieu! Was he not ugly? Skin 

And bones . . poor Zozo ! But his eyes ! I never 

In any child of man have seen such eyes ! 

Sometimes I wondered if an old Norway rat 

Had crept beneath his baby-bonnet. . . To-day 

When most I long to vent my rage upon him, 

That impish look of his disquiets me; 

And when he smiles, I, his own father, feel 

A kind of inward sinking . . Ah, the rascal ! 

How well he understands I am half afraid 



83 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

To scold him, lest he mock me. . Eyes, and smile, 
And rapier tongue swift darting — pink ! Touche! 

But I'll not leave the dog a penny — not one ! 

Let him make verses and starve and hang in the end ! 

What ! does he think I have slaved that he may dance ? 

Dance at a rope's tail, monkey ! . . Literature ! 

Is that an honest man's profession? Am I 

An ass?.. 'Twas Chateauneuf first turned his head, 

Stuffing it full of godless rhymes ; and now — 

"Oedipe!". ,. Well, well, the verses tinkle neatly; 

I'll not deny the lad has eloquence: 

But let him use it then to shrewder purpose, 

Plead in the Courts of France for noble clients, 

Or serve his King abroad! Diplomacy! 

Bon Dieu ! Had I his wit I might have risen — 

Who knows to what giddy height? But he lacks 

prudence ; 
He needs must aim his arrows at the great, 
Even at the Throne ! Has he not served a year 
In the Bastille for one malign bon-mot? 
And when pardoned by Regent Philip himself, and 

promised 
Advancement — saprement! — he needs must say 
*T thank your Highness for my board, but beg you 
"To take no further thought, Sire, for my lodging!" 
Does he hope thus to prosper?. . Yet when I offered 
To buy him a good post, he answered me: 

84 



MAITRE AROUET'S COMPLAINT 

"Good places are not purchased; I'll soon win 
"A better place more cheaply". . . The Bastille 
That was the place he won — ha ! When I heard 
They had laid him by the heels, bon Dieu — I laughed L 
The neighbors heard me laughing. Poor Armand 
Thought I had lost my senses. How I roared! 
— But, for all that, he shall not touch one sou 
Of mine ! Armand respects me. Francois. . . Well, 
Judge for yourself. . . 

I sent him to the Hague 
(Not yet turned twenty) as page, or attache, 
To the Marquis de Chateauneuf, a brother 
Of that Abbe who stuffed my Francois' noddle 
With ribald verses. Marquis de Chateauneuf 
Rode thither as Ambassador.. Bon Dieu! 
I thought well I had launched my scrapegrace on 
A prosperous tide toward Fortune ! . . . Toward the 

gallows ! 
Scarce had he glanced about him when he fell 
In love — with whom, I ask you ? With a chit 
Whose mother is a scurrilous pamphleteer; 
A Protestant to boot! They met by stealth, 
Francois and his "Pimpette" — all Holland soon 
Embroiled in the intrigue ! They locked him fast, 
And he jumped out of windows, slid down roofs, 
To meet the limber jade. She came to him 
Dressed as a boy — his plot, of course ! And then 
He must scheme to bear his delicate boy away 



85 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

To Paris — and cloak the scandal, saying he 
Desired to win her back to the true Faith! 
The profligate ! Little he cared which Faith 
Were false or true, who had none! But in the end 
Marquis de Chateauneuf dispatched him home — 
Where I slammed the door in his face! Little 

cared he. . . . 
For that gay tongue of his won friends at will, 
But to his cost willed oftenest to win 
Him enemies. . no prudence — that's his fault. 
A mot is more to him than daily bread; 
Rather than lose his jest he forfeits freedom — 
And in the end 'twill be his neck he forfeits. 

Peste! I have done with him. . "Oedipe", you say? 

Yes, but the Regent liked it not; there were 

Some lines slipped in to mock him. True; he smiled. 

True; he has given Francois a medal of gold. 

But that's his craft. . he waits. One more affront 

Will bring Voltaire (he calls himself Voltaire 

To madden me — "le petit volontaire" !) 

A lettre de cachet. . 'Twill be but justice, 

And the poor last of him. . . 

Who knocks? 

—Ah bah! 
I had almost hoped. . Nay, 'tis my Fool in Prose. . 
Bon jour, Armand. . . 

(If this one could but smile !) 

86 



BY PROXY 

She longed to hear the Master; I 
Longed rather to be near her, feel 
The tremor of her lightest sigh 
Vibrating to the strings' appeal. 

The master-player lifts his bow, 
The latest whisper dies away; 
Her lips are parted. . Thus I know 
That I have heard a Master play. 

SISTERS 

Out of the dusk a woman's hand; 
Out of the night a woman's face; 
Brief muttered words I understand 
As woman's and the world's disgrace. 

Another night. The world seems fair, 
A heaven of beings nobly planned: 
Soft in the dusk a woman's hair — 
Warm in the dusk a woman's hand. 

THE HEATH 

Nor shall I praise the dream 
Called love, nor shall I praise 
The wayward beckoning gleam 
That o'er the marsh-pool plays. 



87 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Nor him shall I extol 

Who follows the fickle light; 

Deeming his senses soul, 

His quest to scale heaven's height. 

But — if a rhyme may seem 
Fit crown — be his my wreath 
Who flies from dream and gleam, 
Who mounts from marsh to heath. 

For the heath is dry and high, 
Wind-swept and cool and sweet; 
It does not ape the sky. 
But it props a wanderer's feet. 



VALENTINE 

If you should say to me, "Forget 
The world's too finite parapet; 
Step with me blithely on where run 
Rose paths of many an alien sun; 
Thence winging grandly reach with me 
Blue meadows of immensity !" 
Or should you say to me, "Too far 
You range; these homelier regions are 
Friendly unto my heart. Then stay, 
Friend of my heart, with me to-day". . . 



88 



TRUE WOMAN 

If you should say these things, I know 
God's bliss it were to stay or go: 
And if you said them not, I say 
It were all one to go or stay. 



TRUE WOMAN 

Door after door she opened with one key, 
Opened and passed and beckoned, and he went 
Into each silent chamber well-content: 
"These are my own, my very own," said she. 
"But, O my lover, now I make you free 
"Of these my secret rooms, where I have spent 
"My loneliest, happiest hours ! The only rent 
"I charge you is to guard my mystery. 

"Of opals hidden here speak not abroad; 
"Boast not of sapphires gathered without rest, 
"How stealthily, and smuggled in my breast 
"Hither, from the vast treasuries of God !" 
.."Opals?" he murmured, "Sapphires — ? Where — ?" 

She crept 
Close to him, whispered "Ask me not !" and wept. 



89 



THE MIDDLE MILES 
I GUARD MINE OWN 

Beloved, another year 

Like an industrious spider slowly has spun 

Its darkling web, wherein lie drifted all 

Our twelvemonth tale of days and deeds and dreams. 

Now the o'erloaded film must break, the strands 

Fluttering fail into the silt and grime 

Of Earth's dim, littered garret-hole, the Past. 

twelvemonth tale of days and deeds and dreams ! 
Shall love not save 

Aught from this annual wreckage, ere the new, 

The far more perfect (or the meaner) web 

Be bravely anchored to the joists of Time? 

Yes, there is something to be saved. . Most dear, 

Most true, most equable in ardor, one 

Joy must I disentangle and set free 

From dust and shadow, one pure memory keep 

Bright in my heart through all the untenanted years. . 

Your touch upon my sleeve, and then a breath 

Heard of no ear save mine, the thrill of one 

Whispered caress : — "My husband. , . . ." 

Take all the rest 
Thou garret-hole, home of discarded selves ! 

1 give you my ambitions and my songs. 
Cover them closely with your merciful dust, 
Oblivion. They are yours. 

I guard mine own. 



90 



CONFESSION 

This is the man you love . . . No stainless knight 

Unblemished by the world, no paragon 

Moved by pure impulse only, no eremite 

Lost in lone penances from dawn to dawn; 

But such a seeker after truth as scorns 

The cant of custom, such an erring heart 

As drums to beauty's challenge ay, and mourns 

For beauty vanquished: one who bears his part 
In the indifferent tumult of the hour 
Indifferently well; best, one who knows 
Whither, when adverse currents sap his power, 
He may creep homeward to assured repose, — 
Even to your feet, that you may bend above 
His humbled head. . . This is the man you love. 

THE WOMAN SPEAKS 

It lies with you, dear, yours it is to save 
My spirit whole and secret from the grave; 
If in your heart you hold me still secure 
All that I am shall for your sake endure; 
My poor perfections still may bless your days, 
Even when my feet are silent down old ways 
Long trodden by your side. . Yes, hand in hand 
We still may j ourney — if you understand. 
It lies within the limits of love's will 
To conquer love's malignly lurking foe: 
I have not left you, I am with you still, 
Inviolate — if you will keep me so. 



91 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

HIDE AND SEEK 

Close your eyes, close your eyes, 
Mother, till you've counted ten; 
If you find me, you can blind me 
And I'll hunt for you again! 

Hide and seek. . . 

O little child, 
But the fields of God are wide ! 
How shall I, who have not smiled 
Since I vainly strove to "peek", 

How shall I 

Across the sky 
Find the heaven where you hide? 

FAITHLESS 

Always with that brave smile she greeted him, 

Each morning as he kissed her, and again 

Each evening as he entered, clean of limb, 

Clear-eyed, a warrior from the world of men. 

She would not have him think her spirit afraid 

Of the environing foes that held her there 

Room-ridden, and ever silently she prayed 

"Let him not know and suffer" . . He kissed her hair, 

Her lips, her hands, her brow; he read her eyes 

Eagerly for hope's answering gleam; and she 

92 



"A PLAGUE ON ALL COWARDS" 

Gave him the largesse of love's shining lies 
And only when he passed wept bitterly: — 
"Ah, I am faithless !" Like a mourning dove's 
Soft plaint, she moaned — "Death's kiss were more 
than Love's !" 



"A PLAGUE ON ALL COWARDS' 

Now if the grave indeed be not the grave, 

If life be a continuance without end, 

Were it not well to send 

One's soul forth valorously ! 

For if the grave be not the grave indeed, 

Then God has granted us eternity 

To blunder onward till we find our way, 

And, finding, save 

Haply some tardier seeker in his need 

From overmuch confusion, some wild stray 

Born of the vagrant breed. 

Ourselves are we 

Not of the vagrant breed, who ever strive 

Just for the moment's bliss? 

Ourselves are we safe reckoners of the tide? 

Or do we give our slight planks to the gale, 

Daring false death because we are alive, 

Nor reefing close the sail? 



93 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Has Life not been our bride? 

When have we shunned her kiss? 

Now if indeed the grave be not the grave, 

It may be other venturers of old time 

(Wielders of sword or makers of swordlike rhyme) 

May help us forward, upward, as we climb. 

Kit Marlowe there may lend a hand to one 

Who died a brawler, but whose heart was brave; 

And Louis Stevenson, 

God knows ! will aid all vagabonds heart and hand ! 

And many a gallant woman too will stand, 

Self-sundered from the sun, 

With hopeful word and never-wearying heart 

Cheering the stragglers where they faint apart 

From those who surelier run. 

Ah, if the grave be not indeed the grave, 
There is great heart for men who are not strong 
In patience, but who waver varyingly 
With the wild reef -torn currents of unrest — 
Great hope for all who stumble toward the crest 
Of being, with vagrom, indecisive feet! 
For all who shut their eyes, striving to see — 
Singers who break a heart to build a song ! — 
For wilful laggards as for men more fleet. . . 
Since it is Time alone prevents the knave 
From hard-won wisdom that alone can save: — 
Time, the false steward of Eternity. 



94 



THE SURPRISE 

To-day 

I have been trudging widely . . . Overhead 

A curtain of dun cloud hung close and dead. 

The trodden, pasty streets 

Were like the suburbs of some central hell, 

Where the half-damned, the wholly wretched, dwell 

Till some magnificence of sin completes 

Their comfortless probation and they pass 

Beyond the eternal gates of flaming brass. 

. . How can I tell 

The undivided sameness of despair 

Spread o'er the city's face; how can I say 

The obscene desolation of Broadway! 

Such was my mood. The heavy, steaming air 

Choked me with dread; 

I plodded sullenly as to a grave. . 

And one beside me said: 

"Hey, mister, got a light?" 

A light! Could the half-damned thus madly rave? 
Had he but asked for darkness ! 

Then I saw 
(My eyes upon his eyes) a Cherub's head, 
Such as Carpaccio alone could draw; 
So delicately bright, 
So tenderly serene; 
Beauty without a flaw. 

95 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Without a flaw — ? ah, no! But had you seen, 
Warming the mist, that newsboy's questioning smile, 
You would not then have stopped to analyze 
The desolate hour's sudden, all-golden prize .... 

You would have worshipped for a singing while. 

MY COUNTRY 

My country 'tis of thee . . . My country ? Where 

Am I not native to this ragged Fair 

Fate holds on Earth, whereto the Unseen bring 

Their outworn merchandise for trafficking? 

Where tarnished love is sold at fluctuant prices, 

Torn virtues bargained for and tattered vices 

Struck for a song, where at the current rate 

Maids shop for modesty and match for hate; 

Where the cast beauty of the nobler stars 

Seems worth its bloom in blood and tears and scars; 

And one frayed gleaming feather filched from the bright 

Unguessed abysses of eternal light 

Maddens to avarice, and we are fain 

To buy imperfect joy with perfect pain. 

O tragic country mine below the sun, 
Land of the broken purpose, the half-done, 
Half-dreamed, half-ruined towers of the half-hearted, 
Land of the faltering vision, the departed 
Hope : gay bitter mother-land of men . . . 

96 



MY COUNTRY 

Thou hast my soul's allegiance ! Brain and pen 
Are thine for loyal sonship now and ever. 
I am the child of thy confused endeavor, 
Thy baffled toil, thy weakness — I am thine ! 
All that thy tired heart yearns for is divine. 
Thou cravest joy that changes not and peace 
Unchanging; and thy warring passions cease 
Not warring; and the children of thy womb 
Burden thy breast with sorrows . . . 'Tis thy doom. 
Sad mother, not unbeautiful to me, 
To suffer, blinded by the Mystery, 
The Mystery that gave to thee for seed 
A race of mighty dream and puny deed, 
To suffer for their strangeness, nor to know 
Why they must torture thee who love thee so. 

Yet from that love which binds us to thy breast 

May one day flower the pure-leaved lotos — rest : 

Yea, from a love now dark with cruel lust 

May flower one day mild asphodels of trust, 

White lilies of fulfilment grace thy sod 

And deck thee as a garden meet for God 

To visit gladly when He walks abroad: — 

As once, the fable saith, He deigned to tread 

A temporal Eden, long unvisited 

Of any save the poets' venturing feet. . . 

Poets who seek blind wasted paths to meet 

They know not what of desolated bliss, 

97 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

And ever fearful lest some sign they miss, 
Some sapphire in the dust which still may say 
"Once on a time a great King passed this way, 
"And from His robe I fell, too slight a thing 
"To trouble the proud passing of the King." 

FORMERLY 

I was a poet once. To-day 

How faint the rose within the gray. 

Something has changed me, something cold 

Has mingled with my blood, the old 

Rapturous urge toward loveliness 

Has quieted. J tremble less 

When the reluctant sun has made 

For passion's feet a purple glade, 

A glade of quivering purple fire 

On to the ramparts of desire. 

No longer is my heart oppressed 

By the sea's saturnine unrest; 

My pulse no longer doubles when 

The lurking moon leaps forth again 

And with intenser magic fills 

Some lonely winding of the hills; 

Nor am I shaken inexplicably 

By the unyielding mystery 

Of shrouded houses and dark doors, 

When through a village street there pours 

Night's laggard legion blind with rain. . . 

98 



FORMERLY 

Oh, utter joy to feel again 
The ache of swift imaginings ! 
The spirit-tumult of mounting wings 
Beating a tenuous ether far 
Too bright and light to float this star, 
This earthy star low-hung and deep 
Below the vast where poets sweep 
Flame- feathered pinions ! Joy to feel 
Once more the doubly winged heel 
Spurn back the sullen weight of time! 
Joy to be young again! To rhyme 
The ringing changes of the heart! 
Joy long passed over. . . Now with art 
I strain to half-remember these 
Once vivid pangs, brave ecstasies 
Sacred to youth and love and song. 

Ye blessed ones who wildly throng 
Life's glowing portals, radiant, free, 
Press not too swiftly inward! We 
Who mount the stairs of memory 
Yearn down upon you with regret. 
Envy us not that we are set 
Above you in life's temple. Wait, 
Unwearied ones, by the rose-hung gate 
While song's ineffable grace yet clings 
To the bright soft plumage of your wings, 
Wings ye must fold ere ye advance 



99 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Down the strait aisles of circumstance; 
Wings ye must shed, alas, ere ye 
Cumber the stairs of memory. 

THE TWO PRAYERS 

"O world, world, world, defend me from thy blaze! 

Shelter my heart from thine incessant fire! 

Would I in wisdom order all my ways, 

Thy myriad flames lick round me, and desire 

Slips through my veins quicksilver-like and keen, 

And I am hunted from the fields of calm 

Into the thickets of extravagant life ! 

Thy loosely ranging Bacchanals 

Stun me with reiterate calls, 

Lure me on with flaring torches 

Where the ageless Erycine 

Sleeks from her celestial hair 

Glittering dew that blinds and scorches ! 

World, withdraw me from her lair, 

From her luminous white porches 

With voluptuous riot rife !" 

Thus cries the tortured heart of youthful song: 
But thus it cries not long. 

"O world, world, world, chill me not with despair! 
Fix not my being in thine icy arms ! 

100 



HITHER, HYPERION ! 

Once was I passionate and debonair, 

Illustrious in activity, a soul 

Winged for imperial flight! 

But now, alas, I cower from the light, 

Timid, a sensitive creature of alarms. 

I am no longer free beyond control 

Of sanctimonious convention; I 

No longer banish custom in a cry 

Sharp with ecstatic life ! 

Alas, O world, thy colder kin 

Have touched me with their finger-tips, 

Have kissed my forehead with their lips 

Of moonlit snow: 

O world, restore me, fan once more within 

My muted heart youth's unreluctant glow ! 

Give me back joy, my too-long-absent wife!' 

Thus wails the wasted voice of aged song'. 
But thus it wails not long. 



HITHER, HYPERION ! 

Come home to me thou truant Soul of Song! 
Comfort me with the wafture of thy wings: 
Bring me glad dreams and color and flame and dew- 
Brief immaterial life-renewing things 
Thou only canst renew. 

101 



THE MIDDLE MILES 

Come home, come swiftly home ! Thou tarriest long 

In what unguess'd remote felicity. 

Yet have some pity on my spirit, and be 

(As oft thou hast been) mine, and make me strong 

Once more in blithe rewarding minstrelsy ! 

I ask not, nay I dare not ask thee now, 

As once youth-flush' d I asked thee, to abide 

Forever radiant-welcome by my side : 

I am not worthy of such courtesy. 

Ah, had I served thee with a single mind! 

Nay, yet in humbleness I ask of thee 

One moment's pure renewal of delight. . . 

Then pass me by, striking across my sight 

Thy wings' implacable fire ! O Song be kind — 

Send me Sun-smitten to the Lords of Night! 



SONG TRIUMPHANT 



Magic, magic beneath a wind-flower moon, 

Frail, white, and virgin-shy: 
Magic as of some ghostly Druid rune, 
Some breathing wraith of enigmatic song, 
Droops pallidly upon me as I lie 
Soul-shelterless to the wan vesper sky; 
Droops mystically upon me — a Lamian tune, 



102 



SONG TRIUMPHANT 

Secretly humming, as a smitten gong 
Troubles the silence when its crashings cease. 

So now the soul of peace 
Stirs with inaudible pulsation — stirs 

To these dumb intricacies 
The haunted hours like fearful whisperers 

Prolong. 



The wind-flower moon snatched from its tenuous stem 
Falls, blown from heaven; the sky is dark with 
dread. . . 
And now the sudden stars are overhead, 
Song's diadem ! 



in 



I am fulfilled of song! 

No other life save song-life quickens me. 

My soul is cadenced as the strophied sea! 

Beat of my heart-beats, throng 

The intricate rhythms of eternity ! 

I am a voice, a voice singing — where gleam 

Far lights of a far shore, — 

"Life is a lyric, for life is a dream; 

And all prophetic lore 

Rings but a rhyme the more." 



103 



THE MIDDLE MILES 



Truth, truth, ye cry ! 

But I 

Seek not to fix the colored spray, 

Seek not to stay 

Wave, wind, or gradual star: 

To-day 

Is mutable as these things are. 

Yet the vast sway, 

The under-rhythm — God's pulse-beat — shall not fail. 

God's song above God's silence shall prevail. 

PENULTIMATE 

"Life being, as it is," said I, 
"A thing unbeautiful and base, 
"Surely it were a boon to die" . . . 
Love looked me in the face. 

I braved the years, but misery 
Stifled my heart with drifting sand: 
"Now let my days accursed be!". . . 
Love took me by the hand. 

Age ate me to the bone, and life 
Flaked off from me in horrid drouth; 
I whispered, "Let me end this strife" . . . 
Love kissed me on the mouth. 

104 



O GOLDEN AGE DEPARTED 

O Golden Age departed, — if indeed 

Thou art not one to-day and yesterday; 

Or if, more surely than the minds of men, 

The future hold thee, — O thou Golden Age 

Wherein we feign a lordlier sun, and stars 

Of happier influence quickening the night, 

And men formed straight and clean of bone and brain 

To look upon these with communing eyes, 

And women with great eyes less bright than stars, 

But lovelier, whose firm limbs no mortal hand 

Might hope to chisel from the unyielding block, 

Immaculate in beauty. . . O Golden Age, 

Or present, or departed, or to come 

(An outer kingdom, or an inner shrine), 

Be thou for ever active in my breast, 

A constant challenge, a purpose, a desire ! 

So shall my soul grow worthier, and my song 

Fail not in lyric fervor, striving still 

To win for me the austere, the wished content 

Men seek and find not, beating at thy gates. 



105 






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